As with most years, this years school vote is in three parts. There will be a budget for next year, purchase of school buses, and three positions on the school board. The vote itself will be happening Tuesday May 16th, 2017 in the High School Lobby.
Quick election recommendations:
Yes to Candidates
Yes to Buses
No to Budget
School board members are pretty straightforward. Three candidates, three positions. Two of them are incumbents (Amy West and Lawrence Young), while Caralyn Ross is running for her first term. I know all three of these people well enough, and have every reason to believe they can do the job that is being asked of them. Having said that, I always like to see a little more competition for elections.
School bus purchase is also pretty straightforward. The verbiage of the proposal mentions taking out debt, but that is a legal requirement. If I thought debt would actually be needed, I would be against the proposal. But the school has a history or paying for buses directly (ie with cash). As they are a needed tool, this is part of a regular replacement schedule, and it won’t be paid for with debt, I approve of this and will be voting in favor.
The budget is where things get complicated. Having been part of the process, I think the school has produced the best budget it can for this year. While improvements are always (theoretically) possible, the practicalities of limited resources (time and money) makes it unlikely any meaningful improvements can be made to the proposed budget. This would imply I recommend a ‘yes’ vote.
The school appears to use a variant of ‘Baseline Budgeting‘ to plan for future years. Which is to say, assume all of last years expenses continue, and add to that what we can/want. In many ways this is a reasonable way to run things. The problem comes in that it discourages removing existing expenses, so that those resources could be better allocated elsewhere. Over time this can lead to built in waste on inefficient programs.
To change this would require direct action on the part of the school board, backed by support from others (taxpayers, parents, school staff, etc). The obvious obstacle is those who are happy with the way things are. Change is always opposed, in this case I would expect most of that opposition to come from various school staff.
Until I see a school board that is willing to at least try to make serious changes, I can’t endorse a budget that continues this approach. I could support a budget that was part of a multi-year plan to move towards structural improvements, even if it didn’t make meaningful changes itself. Unfortunately, I don’t see that. Some discussion occasionally, but no action.
Don’t get me wrong, the school does make changes and constantly seeks to improve how it does things. But these actions seem mostly cosmetic to me, ‘rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic‘ sort of stuff.
So what is the sort of change that I would like to see? Removal of debt as a funding option (as it violates the ‘no taxation without representation’ premise our government is built upon). Opting out of federal control of education (as that violates the 10th amendment and everyone at the table has sworn to uphold the constitution). De-unionizing the district (as it creates an organization whose primary function is to protect itself while consuming taxes). Eliminating the retirement system (again, ‘no taxation without representation’). Elimination of the ‘grade’ model and moving towards a ‘skill’ or ‘knowledge’ model. Related, increasing diversity in classes (ie larger age spread among students). Not an exhaustive list, but it should serve adequately for examples.
Bottom line of all that is I have to recommend a ‘No’ vote on the budget. Not particularly happy about it, but that is how I will be voting. At least this year, there is always hope for next year.